Blood Redemption (35 page)

Saber made eye contact with Vanya, and the princess nodded.

“At the time,” Saber said, “Salvatore and the other sorcerers spent an enormous amount
of time and energy trying to locate our common enemy. Needless to say, we wanted revenge
pretty badly. But more so, we wanted to find out where they lived, so we could eliminate
them once and for all.”

“They live all over the planet,” Nachari said thoughtfully. “Embedded in their Council
of Nations; disguised as national headhunters; meeting on occasion with human militia
leaders.”

“That’s true,” Saber agreed, “but there’s more to it than that. A lot more to it.”

“Like what?” Marquis asked.

“The sorcerers were able to discover something new, something really odd, something
previously unheard of.” He took a deep breath and just put it out there. “Another
dimension.”

“Another dimension?” Kagen asked.

“Yes,” Saber replied. “A world apart from our own, the origin of the werewolves.”

The entire room inhaled as one.

“What do you mean?” Nathaniel asked.

Saber looked off into the distance for a moment as if trying to
see
the right words. “I mean another dimension, a realm parallel to this one, but apart.
A place called Mhier.” Before one of the Silivasis could interrupt him again, he explained:
“There’s a reason none of us have ever been able to locate anything more than a regional
headhunter here or there, a reason why we’ve never been able to ferret out an entire
community or civilization of Lycans and exterminate them. It’s because they’re not
here. Not the majority of them, anyhow. Not in this dimension.” He sat back in his
chair, apparently deep in concentration. “The sorcerers said that Mhier was like,
I don’t know, a lost civilization from somewhere back in time, complete with salt
mines, slaves, and some pretty gnarly animals. And from what I could garner from Salvatore’s
entries in the annals, any Dark Ones that had been taken by the Lycans were long dead,
and the challenge of trying to get there was a greater risk than it was worth—it was
better to just wait for their periodic attacks and fight them here.”

Marquis exhaled slowly then. “Okay, so no one is going to deny this is important information.
Very important information
. You should be sharing it with Napolean. Why did you come to us?”

Saber scrubbed his face with his hand and swallowed hard. “Because it affects your
family more than most.”

Kagen did not like the sound of that…wherever this was going.

Not one bit.

“How so?” he asked, his heart beginning to beat rapidly with a brash, resounding thud.

“Indeed, how so?” Marquis repeated.

Saber closed his eyes briefly. When he reopened them, they were dark with regret and
deathly serious. “Because of a small entry I came across, written as no more than
a footnote in the text.”

“Well?” Marquis Silivasi bit out impatiently.

Saber met the Ancient Master Warrior’s stare head-on. “It was the name of a vampire,
a slave still living in Mhier, at least at the time of Salvatore’s last entry.”

“And?” Nathaniel Silivasi demanded, his voice growing harsh with anticipation.

“And the name was Keitaro Silivasi.”

Nachari released his hold on Deanna and took two steps back, his stunning features
flushing absent of color. He ran a rigid hand through his thick, wavy hair, and shook
it out in disbelief. The wizard had only been twenty-one years old when their father
disappeared; he had barely had a chance to know him.

Nathaniel’s fangs slowly extended in his mouth, and his eyes burned a deep crimson
red; yet he said nothing. For centuries, he had believed Keitaro was still alive,
and he had searched from one end of the globe to the other before finally giving up
and laying the male’s memory to rest.

Marquis sat back in his chair, far too casually.

His piercing eyes dimmed from deep phantom blue to eerie shark black, the depths going
vacant with barely concealed anguish—and rage—and then he began to tremble.

Uncontrollably.

Kagen sat forward on the edge of his seat, watching Marquis carefully, fully expecting
him to plunge over the edge of sanity at any moment: Marquis and Keitaro had been
the best of friends, bar none. And their father’s loss had affected Marquis more tragically
than any of the others, hardening his heart, changing his personality, molding him
into the brutal, impassive male he was today. Kagen couldn’t help but wish Ciopori
had come with him, that the other females had found someone else to watch their kids,
because by the look on Marquis’s stony face, the male was slipping further and further
away by the second, perhaps going somewhere from which he would never return.

To Kagen’s immense surprise, the huge male seemed to simply snap out of it. That is,
in a truly creepy,
five-faces-of-Eve
kind of way. It was almost as if another personality had simply taken over for him,
run his emotions through a paper-shredder, and discarded them in a bin on the other
side, leaving him free to process the information. “That was almost five centuries
ago,” Marquis grumbled in irritation. “Even if he was alive then, he’s unlikely to
be alive now. Especially if he was surviving as a…a slave.” He stumbled over the last
word despite his self-control.

Vanya took a deep breath then. “I don’t believe that to be true, brother-in-law,”
she said. “I have reason to believe he might yet be living.”

“What reason, Princess?” Nachari asked, his tone also carefully controlled.

Vanya swallowed hard. “Before I met Saber, I had a dream about him, a dream that vexed
me horribly and would not give me a moment’s peace. I dreamed that there was a fire-breathing
dragon in the house of Jadon, and that our paths would cross inexorably. In the dream,
he always burned me when I approached him; yet I couldn’t stay away.
I simply couldn’t
. Because he was guarding something so precious, so valuable to the house of Jadon.
A treasure. One that had to be returned to the people.” She sat back and sighed. “Last
night, I told Saber about the dream, and it sparked his memory. He believes—and I
agree—that the treasure he was guarding was not his own return to the house of Jadon,
but his knowledge of that single footnote: that marginalized entry. Your father’s
name.”

Whatever…
whoever…
was guarding Marquis Silivasi’s emotions stepped aside. He shot out of his chair like
a rocket, fueled by highly combustible energy, ready to launch to the sky, and roared
like an angry lion. “Son of a bitch!”

Nathaniel and Nachari immediately flanked him on either side, both males placing a
firm hand on his shoulders. “Settle down, Marquis,” Nathaniel warned, alluding to
the powerful impact a male vampire’s emotions had on the earth around them. The last
thing they wanted was to trigger an electrical storm or create a flash flood.

“Be calm,” Nachari said, immediately weaving an intricate pattern over the male’s
head, no doubt some spell or another to catch his rage.

Kagen stood to face Saber then, his own heart practically beating out of his chest.
“Do you know where the portal is, the entrance to this…this other dimension?”

Saber shook his head. “No, I never saw that information.”

Nachari shook his head adamantly. “Perhaps not, but if Salvatore Nistor could divine
it with his sorcery, then I can find it using wizardry.”

Saber held up his hands in question. “I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do
know this: If you guys can find the portal, I can draw you a map of the territory.”

Tessa Dawn grew up in Colorado where she developed a deep affinity for the Rocky Mountains.
After graduating with a degree in psychology, she worked for several years in criminal
justice and mental health before returning to get her Master’s Degree in Nonprofit
Management.

Tessa began writing as a child and composed her first full-length novel at the age
of eleven. By the time she graduated high-school, she had a banker’s box full of short-stories
and books. Since then, she has published works as diverse as poetry, greeting cards,
workbooks for kids with autism, and academic curricula. The Blood Curse Series marks
her long-desired return to her creative-writing roots and her first foray into the
Dark Fantasy world of vampire fiction.

Tessa currently splits her time between the Colorado suburbs and mountains with her
husband, two children, and “one very crazy cat.” She hopes to one day move to the
country where she can own horses and what she considers “the most beautiful creature
ever created” -- a German Shepherd.

Writing is her bliss.

Blood Destiny

Blood Awakening

Blood Possession

Blood Shadows

Blood Redemption

Blood Father (Coming Soon…)

If you would like to receive notice of future releases,

please join the author’s mailing list at

www.TessaDawn.Com